by Paul O’Brien

The rolling program of Marvel Now! relaunches continued in January, with SUPERIOR SPIDER-MAN, NEW AVENGERS, SAVAGE WOLVERINE, UNCANNY X-FORCE, YOUNG AVENGERS and MORBIUS. Plus, there’s the miniseries DEADPOOL: KILLUSTRATED – and, just as interesting as the January launches, the continuing question of how the earlier Marvel Now titles are settling down.

Once again, Marvel had the largest share of the North American direct market, leading DC by 40% to 35% in units, and 35% to 32% in dollars.

SUPERIOR SPIDER-MAN is this month’s flagship launch, and while it doesn’t quite match the sales of December’s AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #700 – which, after all, was the really key issue – the first two issues still put in an impressive showing. Although sales are likely to settle down to a lower figure, the storyline is clearly one that’s grabbed a lot of attention. After all, while you can view it as an attention grabbing stunt, you can also view it as a good old fashioned Silver Age superhero hook. Much worse things happened to Clark Kent back in the day.

There’s also a lot of reorder activity on this title. In fact, the same goes for several of the Marvel Now launches, which has to be a good sign for the whole line. In the case of this title, issue #700 adds a further 9,988 copies; issue #699 adds a further 5,144; issue #698 is up by 6,195; and even the Point One issue, which was actually Morbius’ origin story, piles on a further 5,099. As usual, I’ve added those extra sales into the figures above.

Following December’s relaunch of AVENGERS, here’s the B-title, also written by Jonathan Hickman. In fact, this is more of an Illuminati title; as we’ll see, Marvel’s latest marketing brainstorm seems to be to simply attach the same name to several unrelated teams. AVENGERS #1 came in at 187K, so this is quite some distance behind – but then, it is firmly the B-title.

6. SAVAGE WOLVERINE
01/13 Savage Wolverine #1 - 102,530

An ongoing title with Frank Cho writing and drawing the opening arc. You could, of course, view this as a continuation of WOLVERINE, but since there’s another book called WOLVERINE launching shortly, I’m treating this has the extra title. For comparison, though, the previous WOLVERINE title was generally selling in the mid-30K range, so this is a huge increase. This would also have posted a big gain over any year-to-year comparison since 2008.

When a book launches as stratospherically as UNCANNY AVENGERS did, it’s inevitable that there will be steep drops over the next couple of issues while retailers figure out the book’s regular sales level. Estimated orders of 92K for issue #3 is still an excellent number to be delivering.

Again, still finding its level. Issue #3 had rather more variant covers than #4, so the overall trend is smoother than it first appears. Also, issue #2 picks up reorders of 5,134, added into the figures above.

There’s no connection between this book and December’s launch CABLE & X-FORCE besides the name. Of the two titles, this is the one that inherits characters and storylines from Rick Remender’s run, and in an earlier time would simply have been a new creative team coming aboard a continuing series. But you’ve got to admit that they wouldn’t have got this sort of sales boost by taking that route.

Yes, sales went up for issue #6. It doesn’t seem to be due to variants, and I’d be surprised if incoming artist David Marquez had that sort of impact, which seems to leave the explanation that people just like the book. There are re-orders too, with issue #3 adding another 6,363 and issue #4 adding 6,012.

Yes, it’s been that long since YOUNG AVENGERS shipped in a January. The book still has a fan base, though, and so do creators Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie, who worked together on PHONOGRAM. A strong debut for a property that’s been allowed to drift for a surprisingly long time.

A similar deal with both these titles. Now into their third months, they’re levelling out at a number that Marvel ought to be very happy with, considering sales over the last couple of years. Both have been higher in the past, but that was when it were the main focus of Marvel’s promotion, while here they’re simply benefiting from the promotion of the line as a whole.

Considering the first issue sales were probably a bit exaggerated, this is settling down reasonably well. If you want to draw comparisons with the previous, unrelated X-FORCE book, then it’s going to come off worse – but as the secondary X-Force title, that’s probably not going to cause too much concern.

There’s no obvious reason for the drop to have increased again with issue #5. Most likely, this is an example of a common phenomenon with titles that ship two issues a month, where the bigger drops take place between months.

Sales are now back to roughly the level that the previous run was achieving in 2009-10, but those were decent numbers.

This one, on the other hand, does not yet seem to be levelling out – but I attribute that mainly to its having inherited from AVENGERS VS X-MEN an unrealistically high level of sales for an anthology title, given the market’s general lack of interest in such books.

The pattern of percentage drops is pretty familiar by now, but it’s worth noting that this book is already back to the sales it was delivering a year ago. Mind you, the style of the book always made it more of a niche proposition than the straight sister title of the previous volume.

A rare Marvel Now! title that’s already dropped below its inherited sales – but bear in mind that this really has nothing to do with the previous volume of X-MEN LEGACY besides the name. The actual content is a solo title featuring the hitherto relatively minor character Legion – not the most commercial premise.

This is the issue which was changed to feature Hurricane Sandy stories, presumably accounting for the sales bump.

58. DEADPOOL: KILLUSTRATED
01/13 Killustrated #1 of 4 - 36,771

Even this is comfortably ahead of the sales on the previous ongoing DEADPOOL title. Marvel are doing far fewer miniseries these days, evidently preferring to up the frequency of ongoing titles instead – and one side effect is that the minis that do get published are less likely to get lost in the shuffle.

Surprisingly little spillover from the success of SUPERIOR SPIDER-MAN, perhaps indicating that the interest is in the storyline more than the character, and readers don’t expect this book to advance the storyline. Issue #15.1 – which WAS a significant part of the storyline – picks up a whopping 10,602 reorders.

DARK AVENGERS shipped two issues in January, and only one of them outsold CAPTAIN MARVEL – so technically, this title is not yet in the uncomfortable position of being outsold by a cancelled book. Mind you, it’s close. But Marvel are sticking with the book at the moment; they’ve announced a crossover with AVENGERS ASSEMBLE for May to July.

With the adaptation finished, the book moves on to new stories set in the Dark Tower universe. This one was originally announced to come out back in November 2010, but got bumped from the schedule for some reason.

190. ALPHA
01/13 Alpha #0.1 - 8,534

A reprint of AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #692.

And from here, we’re firmly into the books that aren’t really aimed at the direct market.

Marvel shipped the first 3 issues in 4 weeks. By the time retailers had any idea #1 was going to do better than expected, we were placing orders for #6. If Marvel had shipped this comic monthly, my orders for #3 would have matched my orders for #1, with only a slight dip for #2.

Marvel’s insistence on shipping books more frequently is costing them, and retailers, sales.

Some customers will be satisfied with second printings, but Marvel is under-printing those, too, necessitating 3rd and sometimes 4th printings. And for some readers, when the second printing of #2 comes out at the same time as #6, well, sometimes they just throw their hands in the air and say “forget it.”

“Now into their third months, they’re levelling out at a number that Marvel ought to be very happy with”

I realize that this subject is now as old as the hills, but it’s just too perfect an example to let slip by. Can anyone imagine what kind of analysis we’d get in the DC sales charts of two books that both lost about 50% of their sales in just two months since a new #1? Or any DC super-hero book where the most recent month showed a drop of over 6% in sales? It certainly wouldn’t include the phrases “levelling out” or “be very happy with”.

Yeah, I’m surprised (and slightly annoyed) by how snarky the DC commentary is by comparison. The same figures over there would entail some smart-arsed claims by the discussant. Here, they’re treated more evenhandedly (which is a good thing). Maybe the Beat can take a hint and get someone to do the DC numbers who’s less interested in dissing the company and actually providing simple analysis.

I’d actually have to go back and look at the charts from last year, but it seems like Marvel titles are falling back toward their old levels at a quicker pace than the new 52 did. That really isn’t unexpected though since NOW is much different than New 52 in terms of approach.
Seriously though, how often can a publisher relaunch Captain America in a ten yer span?

Yeah, I’m really bummed that the sales on a lot of the Marvel stuff isn’t where it should be. Particularly Wolverine & The X-Men. That is my favorite book every month and it sucks that it’s sliding towards failure.

I know its unrelated but sales on some Marvel NOW titles actually went up in February.

All New X-men, Avengers and Thor sales inched up. Deadpool stayed at exactly the same level for February to January. Daredevil and Hawkeye are still roughly the same level. Good books still sell themselves.

The reason for the larger than expected drops is because of Marvels overly frantic shipping schedule which makes retailers order blind.

Not only does Daredevil 21 have a Superior Spider-Man appearance, but it is actually his first appearance in publication order. ASM 700 came out the following week (though, thanks to my friendly neighborhood comic seller, I was able to read it the week before street date). That explains the reorders.

I don’t know if WatXM is sliding towards failure, but I hope it can stick around. Double-shipping probably doesn’t help.

No, it was a cameo appearance. As I recall, Matt’s girlfriend asked Spider-Man to go after Daredevil for her, and he agrees and says, “I will crush him!” Which made her confused. It didn’t give any answers, but I suppose it gave a big hint.

No, it was a cameo appearance. As I recall, Matt’s girlfriend asked Spider-Man to go after Daredevil, and he agrees and says, “I will crush him!” Which makes her say, “Wait, what?” It definitely would have given a big hint about the end of 700, but it didn’t spell it out completely.

So, with the cancellation of Dark Avengers, another book from my pull list is gone. Chalk me up to someone who jumped on the Deadpool bandwagon by good word of mouth and friend recommendations. Issue 4 was the first issue I bought when it came out, tracked down issue 1 at a local shop. Had to order issues 2 and 3 through EBay, since all the local shops here were sold out.